Bill C-86, the Budget Implementation Act, 2018, No. 2, (the “Bill”) which makes a number of changes to the Trademarks Act, the Patent Act and the Copyright Act as well as introducing the College of Patent Agents and Trademark Agents Act became law in Canada after receiving Royal Assent on Dec. 13, 2018.

The Canadian Copyright Act does not identify video games as a specific type of work and the courts have not directly stated what type of “work” video games fall under, but the courts have recognized that video games are protected under copyright.

We are signing off with a list of the top 10 most-read Inside Internal Controls posts for 2017. This year on the Inside Internal Controls blog we’ve been covering some of the hot topics in internal controls, governance, information technology, not-for-profit, and business management among others. The top 10 most-read Inside Internal Controls posts for 2017 include:

In order to protect their ownership of copyright, organisations whose works might be published by the government should obtain any necessary assignments or waivers, since the Crown copyright regime does not apply if there is a private arrangement with the work’s author.

In a recent decision, the Small Claims Division of the Court of Québec has found a newspaper liable for infringement of copyright and moral rights in photographs published without reference to the photographer.

Is operating a website that provides links to torrent websites which facilitates unauthorized downloading of musical works a criminal offence? If so, can the operator of such sites expect jail time as punishment for this crime? In a recent decision of the English and Wales Court of Appeal, the accused, Mr Evans, was convicted of two offences of distributing infringing copies of musical works and was sentenced to 12 months in prison for these crimes.

Last December, the Quebec Superior Court issued its decision in Seggie v. Roofdog Games Inc.[1], in which it attempted to clarify the notion of co-authorship (and by implication, copyright ownership) of a videogame. This case marks the first time that the issue of authorship of a videogame was ever considered by a Canadian court (and one of the very few Canadian cases to consider authorship of software more generally).

The last copyright amendments in Canada happened in 1997, long, long before copyright piracy entered the mainstream. Now, the Conservative government will make its third attempt to update the law. Will this be their lucky time? The current bill is essentially the same as the previous effort, Bill C-32, which was thwarted after its second reading when the government fell earlier this year on a non-confidence motion. The newly elected government promised to reintroduce the amendments and pass them in short order, and here we are.

For those of you haven’t been following the contentious reform of the existing and antiquated Copyright Act, this is the fed’s third crack at it. The Liberals tabled Bill C-60 in 2005, which was criticized for favouring the interests of copyright holders over consumers and died when Parliament was dissolved that year. The Conservatives tried again with Bill C-61 in 2008. It faced the same complaints, and disappeared when the government prorogued.